Two stalled Metro projects gather pace; work begins at New Garia station and Chingrighata gap
Telegraph | 18 May 2026
Two long-pending Metro Railway projects have begun at long last.
The raze-and-repair job at Kavi Subhash (New Garia) station on the north-south Metro corridor (Blue Line) began on Sunday.
The work to bridge the 366m gap in the Metro viaduct at Chingrighata on the New Garia-airport corridor (Orange Line) also began on Friday evening, after a traffic block was enforced. The gap has been partially bridged, Metro officials said.
Commercial services at the southern terminal of the Blue Line — the city’s busiest Metro corridor — were suspended from July 28 last year because of cracks in the platform pillars. The platform meant for Dakshineswar-bound trains (Up platform) will be demolished and rebuilt.
On Sunday, men wearing helmets and jackets and armed with machines were busy at the station.
Since July 29, Shahid Khudiram (Briji) has been serving as the southern terminus of the corridor. But it lacked a rake-reversal point, which is used to switch trains’ tracks. Work to set up the reversal point began after commercial services ended on Saturday.
The carrier suspended commercial services between Mahanayak Uttam Kumar (Tollygunge) and Shahid Khudiram on Sunday to facilitate the installation of the reversal point.
The demolition of the down platform at New Garia station will pick up pace after the new rake reversal point becomes operational.
Till now, an empty train still switched tracks at New Garia station. On the north-bound journey, the empty train arrived at Shahid Khudiram station, where passengers began boarding.
With the new reversal point, an empty train will no longer go to New Garia. It will switch tracks at Khudiram itself and start its journey towards Dakshineswar. It means the work at New Garia will have no interference.
“Work to set up the reversal point began after commercial operations ended on Saturday night. The work involves placing tracks linking the two existing lines (Dakshineshwar-bound and New Garia-bound). A train, after reaching Khudiram, will switch to the tracks meant for Dakshineswar-bound trains through the new crossover passage,” said a Metro engineer.
“Once the crossover passage is placed on the overhead tracks, it has to be synchronised with the signalling system. A new signalling point has been set up at the spot. After the synchronisation, we will have to conduct several trial runs to see if the new arrangement works. All this will be completed before Monday morning, when commercial services on the entire corridor resume,” he said.
New Garia was an interface between the Blue Line and the Orange Line (New Garia-airport corridor). It was also connected to the New Garia suburban railway station.
Tens of thousands of passengers had to change their travel plans because of the closure.
The demolition will take between four and six weeks, and construction is expected to take another six to seven months, said Metro officials.
Chingrighata
The work, which had been pending for more than 15 months, began with the enforcement of a traffic block from Friday evening to Monday morning.
“Concrete decks were launched between two piers (317 and 318) on the Ultadanga-bound flank of EM Bypass. Around 10 such decks, which comprise one span, were lifted. For much of Sunday, they were being aligned along the overhead viaduct,” said an official of RVNL, the executing agency of the New Garia-airport Metro link or Orange Line.
The gap at Chingrighata has to be bridged for the line to reach Sector V. The line is now functional between New Garia and Beleghata.
Two traffic blocks over successive weekends are needed to bridge the gap.
RVNL sources said around 28m of the total gap is being bridged during this traffic block.
Another 34m will be bridged during the course of the next traffic block (Friday, Saturday and Sunday).
For the remaining work, the agency doesn’t need exhaustive traffic blocks. It will be done in phases, the sources said.